05 July 2011

Fr. Horn on New Kenrick-Glennon Seminary Administration

The following statement by the Rector of Kenrick-Glennon Seminary is dated June 29, 2011 and is taken from the Seminary's website:

A message from our incoming President-Rector, Father John Horn, S.J.:

Dear Seminarians, Faculty, Staff, Board Members, and Friends,

As the Seminary transitions to a temporary home, we look for the Father's providential care at every turn. We rest in the amazing breadth of His care as we receive the generosity of the good priests and people of the Archdiocese of Saint Louis.

I am grateful to announce a significant number of new additions to our administration as well as some administrative restructuring that promises to benefit our beautiful mission. I am especially grateful to Archbishop Carlson as he leads us in providing the best possible formation for the Church's next generation of diocesan priests. As I serve Archbishop Carlson's heart, and each of you, I am very happy to announce the following:

Bishop Edward Rice will be "Bishop in Residence" with responsibility for overseeing the college division for 2011-2012. Bishop Rice's presence assures a high degree of continuity, stability and effective leadership for the seminary community. After ten years of generous service, Msgr. Timothy Cronin has requested a parish assignment. He will be missed greatly, but we will have regular contact as he continues to teach part-time.

Fr. Thomas McDermott, O.P. is our new Vice Rector for Kenrick. His rich background in seminary administration, his professional care for faculty relations and his expertise in Spiritual Theology provide a rare blend of gifts that will serve us greatly. Fr. McDermott's leadership will strengthen our desires to receive a maturing readiness, ability and willingness to abide within a heartfelt interior communion with Jesus' Spirit.

Fr. Donald Henke has generously agreed to serve as the Vice Rector for Administration and Finance while retaining his teaching role in Moral Theology. This new administrative position will grant needed attention to everyday business within the seminary community and strengthen our stewardship of the many gifts that we are receiving in the Father's providence.

Dr. John Gresham has agreed to serve as the new Academic Dean. His personal gifts and skills in overseeing assessments and evaluations, as well as his experience as Associate Dean, will bless us greatly. As he departs his position as Director of the Library, we begin a search to fill this important position. Dr. Gresham will continue to teach part-time in Systematic Theology.

Fr. James Swift, C.M., is the new Director of Worship. His many years of respected service on the faculty and his particular expertise in this area promise a deepening taste of joy and unity as we are nourished daily by the Living Word and rest in receiving all that we need from Jesus' Eucharistic presence.

Fr. Peter Ryan, S.J., will begin to serve as the Director for Spiritual Formation in January 2012 after he concludes a brief sabbatical. Fr. Ryan comes to us after a decade at Mount Saint Mary's Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland. He is a respected moral theologian, retreat master and gifted spiritual director. Fr. Ryan will serve as a full-time live-in spiritual director and will teach part-time.

Fr. James Knapp, S.J., will also be a full-time live-in spiritual director and part-time teacher. Fr. Knapp is a moral theologian and has a special expertise in Blessed John Paul II's "Theology of the Body." Fr. Knapp is well known after many years of teaching and promoting diocesan vocations to the priesthood at Saint Louis University High School.

Dr. Shawn McCauley-Welch is welcomed as an Associate Professor. After her years of teaching and serving as the Associate Dean at Paul VI Institute for Catechetical and Pastoral Studies, we are very happy to have Dr. McCauley-Welch with us in this new depth of service

Sr. Mary Cora, R.S.M., an Alma Mercy sister, comes to us to serve as Assistant to the Rector, a new administrative position. She has been serving the rector of St. John’s Seminary, Bishop Arthur Kennedy, in this capacity in Boston. Mrs. Robin Lukasek remains my Administrative Assistant and will share in a refashioning of responsibilities within seminary business, finance and administration. Sr. Mary Cora will be an invaluable asset in our on-going implementation of the Program for Priestly Formation #115 which places spiritual formation as the integrating principle for all priestly formation; human, academic and pastoral.

In addition, interviews are in process for an Associate Director for Pastoral Formation to assist Fr. Paul Rothschild and for a new Assistant Director for Human Formation to assist Dr. Suzanne Harvath.

I wish to especially thank Fr. Michael Witt, Msgr. Timothy Cronin, Fr. Donald Henke, Fr. Paul Rothschild, Msgr. James Ramacciotti and Dr. Suzanne Harvath for their in-depth consultative advice. Their wise counsel and collegial hospitality have mediated greatly the Father's providential care. I also wish to thank Fr. Edward Richard, M.S. for his fraternal encouragements as he departed to assume a new position of important leadership within his religious congregation. Our prayers and blessings go with him.

As we walk forward amid transition in the new residential and office facility, I am grateful to Randy Rathert for his fine leadership as project manager and to Jim Kalkbrenner for overseeing the move.

Since April 1st, I have been able to meet in personal conversation with all of the administrators and faculty. I am especially grateful for the quality of these conversations and for the pastoral charity that is so evident towards each other as colleagues. Thank you for the warm welcome, for the time of fruitful prayer, and for the trust exercised in these conversations. In the coming months, it is my intention to continue to meet with all part-time faculty members, spiritual directors, members of the seminary support staff and members of the Kenrick-Glennon Board. I especially look forward to meetings with the seminarians.

There was a wonderful opportunity to meet with the deacons, the men entering 4th year theology, and Thomas Grafsgaard, the new student body president. These hope-filled conversations carried a real taste of joy as we anticipated a deepening fraternal communion as we face the challenges for the year ahead.

In the gift of a lively faith, I invite you to step back and see the beauty of an unfolding tapestry of the Father's providential care. Our gratitude will only increase as we see the great talent and generosity that these announcements represent. It is truly beautiful to behold!

I ask that we say our own deepening "yes" to allowing Jesus' Spirit to carry and lighten our individual burdens. I ask that we continue to reach out with gladness to carry each other's burdens, in that certain hope that is our spiritual inheritance as believers. May we grow in trust that the Father of all consolation desires to do everything for us as we surrender everything to His providential care! Be assured of my prayers as I also request them.

JBQ submitted a comment to the effect that he or she is noticing a pattern, matching SLU's theology department. He notes that the women pastoral associates at many parishes are commonly SLU-trained. He thinks this is a transition to a predetermined end. I have had to edit the comment because there were elements I won't allow to be posted, as well as some factual matters with which I disagree. I am sorry to do this but the alternative was to delete it in its entirety, and I don't want to have him or her think it is because I don't want contrary opininions.

I know this post is a year old, but in googling Fr. Don Henke it came up. Just learned he's being sent to Rome to put a little distance between him and a phoney "visionary" he's mixed up with. The crazy woman has quite a cult following and he's one of her biggest defenders. Calls herself Sr. Jenny and is from somewhere in the Ozarks. Total loons...her and her followers. Do a little digging. You'll be quite alarmed. Especially since he is (or was) one of our archdioceses' rising stars.

I do not understand all the changes at Kenrick. All the turn over of qualified staff, here one day gone tomorrow. Cardinal Burke planned to make Kenrick the best in the West. Now it seems like it's becoming more like a retreat house. I don't get why Archbishop Carlson is so tied to Fr. Horn and letting him hatchet whoever he wants even removing Bishop Rice. We just spent a fortune re doing Kenrick and winning architectural rewards but what about people, the clergy as well as lay staff. Something is definitely amiss at Kenrick with all the secrecy and discontent among those training to serve we the laity in the ministerial priest hood. The only cult that should be important is the cult of Jesus.

You may find some answers to your questions within this blogger's site at:

http://stlouiscatholic.blogspot.com/2011/07/more-changes-at-kenrick-glennon.html?showComment=1373377642475#c493567556212037808 or http://stlouiscatholic.blogspot.com/2009/12/mueckl-receives-papal-honor.html?showComment=1372043113842#c8585610265394185592

A Day That Will Live in Glory

Pray for the Four Cardinals: Burke, Caffarra, Meiser and Brandmuller

“You are the ones who are happy; you who remain within the Church by your Faith, who hold firmly to the foundations of the Faith which has come down to you from Apostolic Tradition. And if an execrable jealousy has tried to shake it on a number of occasions, it has not succeeded. They are the ones who have broken away from it in the present crisis. No one, ever, will prevail against your Faith, beloved Brothers. And we believe that God will give us our churches back some day."